


Will Never:

by half_sleeping



Series: Sticks and Stones [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/half_sleeping/pseuds/half_sleeping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The interlude/request ficlets for Sticks and Stones</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**For Kisseki-no-sedai** , The first time Aomine got chi-blocked.   
  
  
"Quit it!" screeched Satsuki.  
  
"I'm not doing nothing," said Daiki, and slipped another water whip in through the spaces of her hair, sniggering as she yelped. Stupid Satsuki. Why'd she have to go and start training to be a Kiyoshi Warrior, anyway? It wasn't as though she could bend, or anything. _He_ could. He was better than anyone. He'd take care of them. She didn't need to go off all day and train with girls, who shooed him away but he didn't care because he didn't want to learn their stupid fighting style anyway.  
  
"Quit it," said Satsuki, and pointed her spoon at him. "Or- or-"  
  
Daiki knew what she would do. She'd leave him, just like being passed from house to house in the village, until they'd declared themselves their own family and just got fed by everyone as a whole. It wasn't her they didn't want, but Daiki, Daiki who started fights and destroyed boats and had just washed up on the shore one day.  
  
Satsuki had said she wouldn't leave him, that she'd never leave him. Why did she need to be a warrior, when there was him around? Stupid Satsuki. "Or what?" he said.  
  
Momoi came in with the spoon high and fast, and threw it. Daiki smacked it out of the air with a tongue of water taken from her cup, and then her other hand flashed out and hit that arm three, ten times, and the water collapsed right when Daiki would have brought it back to teach her a sharp lesson.  
  
"Wha-" he said, but his other arm was moving, instinctual, automatic. Daiki was impossible for the water bending masters to ever teach; he was better than them all combined and did practically nothing they recognized as proper bending. Satsuki ducked in and hit him all along the exposed side of his body, wrist elbow underarm bicep chest waist hip, and Daiki collapsed on a leg suddenly gone numb.  
  
She climbed onto his head and sat on it. "There," she said. "Now say you're sorry."  
  
"No," snarled Daiki, outraged, and tried to kick with his one good leg; Satsuki grabbed it on the swing and folded it with all her strength. Daiki howled.  
  
"Say it!" she said.  
  
"No," he said.  
  
Satsuki picked up the spoon and held it threateningly. "Say it or I'll feed you all the stewed seaweed _right now_."  
  
"No!" cried Daiki, and then snorted, he wasn't crying, he wasn't. But he couldn't bend, could feel the water just a few feet away but was unable to move it.  
  
"You're the one being a jerk," said Satsuki, but she got off him anyway and pressed at his bony arms until they began to tingle and the clenching of his fist once again rattled all the waters of the bay.  
  
At the end of it, Satsuki's small strong hands warm on his limbs, Daiki felt better, and ate up all his stewed seaweed. "You should be more afraid of me," he told her, and wasn't sure exactly why he said it, except that if she hadn't stopped his second strike, or the kick, where he'd felt ready to drain the very air they breathed- he didn't know. Sometimes the adults were afraid.  
  
"Don't be stupid," said Satsuki, and made him ice up their milk so they could lick it off the spoon together.

 


	2. Chapter 2

For anon: Takao and Midorima’s first meeting  
  
  
Being technically discharged and thus at annoyingly loose ends was beginning to wear on Takao. Now and then some noise was made about his reassignment, or at least a further attachment, some bigwigs coming to Republic City and a suitably official-looking escort to be provided for them. Takao had begun to regard these mysterious bureaucrats on the same level as the Lion Turtle. Not that he was important enough to be escorting anyone actually in charge of getting anything done, of course.  
  
No, he was more of a good-time-had-by-all kind of guy. Best noodles in the city? He could do that. Seedy underground pro-bending matches and the best seats in the house? He could _do_ that. The best fire flakes still made by the same family for four generations, and the view from Avatar Aang Memorial Island? He couldn’t fail to be a welcome wagon so welcoming that any bigwigs whatsoever wouldn’t be enchanted with Republic City.  
  
And then Midorima.  
  
He snubbed the noodles. “Highly inauthentic,” he sniffed at Narook’s, pushing up his glasses. Narook had actually come over the counter at his head, and Takao had had to push Midorima out before a diplomatic incident was spilled all over the floor like discarded broth.  
  
“Low-class and improper utilization of the bending arts,” he sneered at probending, and when Miyaji rose up to take up the defence of his beloved Rabaroos Kimura had to stuff water-winter-melons into his maw for hours to calm him down.  
  
“I _hate_ fire flakes,” said Midorima flatly.  
  
“You just came from the Fire Nation,” said Takao, exasperated, and drooping over his rickshaw.  
  
“I hated them there too,” said Midorima, looking at the distance along the bay. It was a shame that all the scowls twisted his looks. Takao had never seen a waterbender with green eyes before, and in the fire nation court fashions tailored to his body, Midorima might have been popular, if Takao dared to risk taking him to a bar and then never being able to drink there again. If he could ever be persuaded to let go the weird things the almanac said was his lucky item for the day, too. The thing he appeared to most like was the radio, if only because of the horoscope broadcast every morning. Everything else was wrong. The streets were too dirty. The girls dressed wrong- that is to say, not against an arctic winter in layers and layers of furs- and the food wasn’t good. He was _impossible_.  
  
He didn’t even like the water that they got in Republic City. “It’s foul,” he had said, and then Takao had just slumped his shoulders and sighed.  
  
And then one day Takao dropped by as usual- because talk about bloody _nothing to do_ , when all his former shipmates were back out on patrol- only to be told that Midorima was at the hospital, and had been there all night.  
  
“Oh, spirits someone’s finally taken a swing at him,” said Takao, and then was off.  
  
He found Midorima in the hospital, talking earnestly with the doctors- the _same_ doctor, in fact, who’d pulled him off active combat duty. Well. There were really only so many waterbending healer doctors, even if they all appeared to be listening to Midorima... and... nodding.  
  
“Midorima-kun, we were very pleased to have your expertise last night,” said the doctor.  
  
“And a lot of this morning,” said another, laughing.  
  
“It was nothing,” said Midorima, but he had bruised shadows under his eyes, and his usually perfect clothes were rumpled. “Without your experience, I would not have caught-”  
  
“Shin-chan?” said Takao, more out of surprise than rudeness.  
  
The doctor turned, and raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he said. “Lieutenant Takao. Do you know Midorima?”  
  
“I’ve been reassigned,” said Takao.  
  
“Takao?” said Midorima, and blinked hard, rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes. “Oh, we had-”  
  
“No, no,” Takao said. “I mean, just- they said you were here.”  
  
“I’ve been studying here, on and off,” said Midorima. “I’m not needed in the talks and meetings, so-”  
  
The doctor sighed. “Midorima is one of the most talented young healers we’ve ever seen,” he said. “If we’d had someone like him around when- well. We were lucky to have him around last night. Go home, Midorima. Take some rest. You did good work last night. Lieutenant, your charge.”  
  
Midorima wobbled out of the hospital and into the rickshaw.  
  
“It was new moon last night,” said Takao. That was the kind of thing you kept track of, on the ship.  
  
“My bending was reduced but not exeunt,” said Midorima. “I’m much stronger than they are. Their bending was gone entirely.”  
  
“Huh,” said Takao, and demurred telling Midorima that he had several unpleasant-looking bodily fluid stains on his expensive, well-made shirt. His jacket was still folded next to him, though. Maybe he’d felt the shirt was worth being beyond salvage. “Should- do you want to go back?”  
  
“I want some noodles now,” said Midorima.  
  
Takao looked at him in surprise.  
  
“I said that they were inauthentic,” said Midorima, blinking at Takao like _he_ was the wronged one, the one who had the right to wonder if Takao was soft in the head. “I didn’t say they were _bad_.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Aomine uses his bending

The world rocked beneath him as he woke up. The wind and rain pattered on his face, and the ground- no, the curve of the boat, rough cloth over wood, continued to roil around him. Daiki coughed, choked. He spat up sea-water and bile, and rough hands pounded him on the back and kept him down in the boat all at once, yelling "DOWN, STAY DOWN." Daiki stayed down. He felt ill and terrible. All up his side he ached like he had been swimming too long, like he had run into an igloo wall.   
  
Around them the ocean raged like a polar bear dog in full fury. The sharp specks of salt water thrown up pelted the faces of everyone in their boats, many boats tiny in comparison to the wreckage around which they circled warily. The entire village had turned out to try and save the passengers of a ship going down in the waters just out from Kiyoshi Island.   
  
Daiki clung miserably to the side of the boat and coughed and coughed. He wasn't the only one. A woman he didn't know was sitting up and helping a man vomit out over the side of the boat, and the man who had made him stay down was reaching over the side of the boat for someone else, dressed in the blues of the Water Tribes, being propelled up towards him by an unsteady waterspout Their boat hung back from the grim chaos of the wreckage outright, and was larger than the tiny skiffs being propelled by white-faced Waterbenders struggling to control their boats in the face of the wind and rain, of the ocean's fury. They picked out survivors and tried to direct them to the bigger boats hanging, they tried to lever apart the wreckage before it could go under and take everyone they had not yet saved. They didn't have _enough_ Waterbenders, thought Daiki, and those they did have weren't strong enough to contend with all this and more.  
  
They fought the ocean for every person they hauled up onto the boats, and the ocean made them pay. Rain and waves pelted onto Daiki's head in equal measure. The woman had pulled herself to the center of the boat, and her arm around Daiki was an iron bar. Daiki heard a loud noise cutting through the shouts and the wind, a long belling horn. Heads turned all over the boats, and Daiki saw looks of mingled relief and disappointment, weariness cutting lines into their faces visible even through the storm.   
  
"Back to the village," muttered the guy standing over Daiki. The Waterbenders were moving now in tandem, pulling away from the ship and sweeping the boats and the skiffs back to the shore, looking hunted and afraid.   
  
Daiki was afraid. He looked in every direction and it didn't seem like they were going to make it, that the waves would take them down. They weren't- they needed to get to the shore, they weren't going to get back to the shore, none of them would. Other boats with more people were coming into view, and they were also struggling. He couldn't- he closed his eyes, and with every bit of his body felt the sea roil below him, water everywhere, trying to move in one direction as the benders tried pushed them home. It was like fighting the moon for control of the tides. He felt it deep within himself. Push, and pull. Move with the ocean, not against it. Push. Pull. Move-   
  
Screams were muffled in the crash of a massive wave, and the another, and another. The people left on the shore ready to receive the rescuers watched in horror as the waves came on. They fled up the shore as quickly as they could, but some didn't move fast enough, reduced to clawing at the sand and trying to fight the swirling chaos of crashing waves. Some boats came apart entirely in the first giant  wave, and the ones which kept their shape vanished into the the water. Only some bobbed up again.  
  
Daiki scrabbled onto the sand choking out seawater. He was seized by a- he couldn't see, he was still gasping water out of his lungs and blinking it out his eyes, but their grip was strong and sure and they handled his limp body with as much ease as one could expect. He was dropped onto grass and soil- solid ground, _blessed_ solid ground- and other strong hands took him up and pulled him further in, away from the water. Maybe Daiki passed out. He wasn't really sure. He could still hear the storm even in his sleep.  
  
When he woke he had been changed into dry clothes, and was lying on a pallet next to others, others he recognized in a vague way from the . He didn't see the woman who had held him on the boat. He didn't see the guy who had been piloting their boat. He started to try to speak and immediately had to vomit _again_ , throwing up into a bucket placed nearby.   
  
A girl came running down the line of people calling to older folks that someone else was awake. She put her hands over his and helped him hold the bucket steady, put her hand on his head when he was done. A man made a face at the bucket and called water from another one further down, pressing it over Daiki's chest with a weak glow. He was exhausted. He had been one of the waterbenders out there circling the ship.   
  
"Are you okay?" said the girl, looking at Daiki right up close and concerned. "Are you? We think you came from the ship."  
  
"His lungs are clear," said the Waterbender. "You'll be alright, kid." He pulled at his face, then said, "More than I can say for a lot of us." Daiki did not think that he and the girl were meant to hear him say that. He could see the bender was shattered with tiredness, though.  
  
"My dad-" said the girl, looking up at the bender as he stood in response to another call.  
  
"They're searching, Satsuki," he said. "You'll be the first person to know, I promise."  
  
Daiki looked at the girl. "Satsuki?" he said. His voice didn't sound right to him. It scratched and hurt, like he had been screaming and not known it.   
  
"Yes," she said, and tried to pat his head again, holding onto him with trembling hands. She was warm. "That's my name. What's yours?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kise and Kasamatsu first meet. Baby airbenders!

The new arrivals spilled off their Air Bison in a flood of unfamiliar accents and official-sounding talk, groaning as they stretched out their legs and settled in their beasts. Already the monks and acolytes were moving forward to direct and corral them, and as Kasamatsu sidled through the giant courtyard off from running errands, organized chaos was taking place everywhere.

Some of them wouldn't stay, Kasamatsu knew, swept off instead to one of the other Air Temples, or just here on a visit. He wondered if one of them was the Avatar, who was supposed to arrive any day now: many Air Benders were coming in to see that paragon. One of them caught Kasamatsu’s eye, standing off by himself. He was clearly younger than all the rest by a good deal, too young to be caught in the administrative shuffle from temple to temple, young enough to have been set aside as unimportant until the important stuff got sorted out. His head was shaved bald like the very youngest and oldest acolytes, and his yellow eyes took in Air Temple Island curiously. The kid had his glider tucked under his arm, and as Kasamatsu approached him he was leaning into the air that swept the Republic City Air Temple; the gusts from the wind whipping around the towers to pool in the main courtyard, the ice-cold salty ocean air, the billows of smoke and stench which were the legacy of Republic City's factories. It always took the sensitive ones like that at first, the city. He was maybe eleven, maybe twelve, Kasamatsu's own age. He would have been tall for twelve, but the face which turned and smiled at his approach was round-cheeked and innocent, and Kasamatsu rapidly revised his age estimate down a year.

"Hi," he said, and introduced himself. "You staying?"

"I don't know yet," said the newcomer, responding to Kasamatsu’s friendly tone and somewhat masterly manner like a flower blooming in the dawn. "I'm Kise. I just came from the Northern Air Temple." His gaze darted around the courtyard. “Elder Takeuchi brought me here.”

Kasamatsu nodded. No wonder the kid looked so lost. Takeuchi was in charge of half the Island and was involved heavily in preparations for the arrival of the new Avatar. He wouldn’t have much time to do the introductions for a kid newly arrived from what Kasamatsu, city-bred, couldn’t help thinking of as the sticks. “You need to be somewhere?” said Kasamatsu, making a rapid command decision.

Kise shrugged casually, but looked crestfallen as Kasamatsu turned away. Everyone was busy, and no one had time for him.

Kasamatsu looked over his shoulder at Kise. “Come on,” he said.

Kise brightened and followed, beginning to talk his head off.

"It's not as cold here," he said, trying to explain away his formal-looking robes, long-sleeved and heavy. "The Northern Air Temple is much colder."

"Oh, we're cold enough at night," said Kasamatsu. "But it's summer now, and between being out on the water and the haze from the city, we're pretty lucky, though.

"It's so different from home," said Kise, looking at the seething metropolis of Republic City, watching smoke trail into the air.

"What’s it like?" said Kasamatsu, and let Kise talk about his home as they passed into the living quarters for the young boys.

Kasamatsu found Moriyama there, and Kobori frowning intensely over some history homework. Kise was greeted warmly, though not without Moriyama looking him over narrowly first to ascertain he was not female.

“New kid?” said Kobori, nodding to Kise.

“Yeah,” said Kasamatsu. “Taking him out for a sweep, you guys want in?”

They both agreed, leaping up to grab their gliders and gleefully abandoning their school-work. It would just be a short run, Kasamatsu thought. Just around the city and back, away from the hustle, it didn’t have to take long at all.

“Window?” said Moriyama, a gleam in his eye.

Kasamatsu looked out their dorm window, which overlooked a sheer drop down the side of the island’s cliffs, and looked at Kise.

Kise grinned, and said, “Sure.”

“I’ll go after you,” said Kasamatsu. He didn’t think Kise would stick the takeoff, but he also didn’t want to have to explain to the elders how he’d let a kid hurt himself by throwing himself out a window.

Kobori and Moriyama jumped, followed by Kise, and Kasamatsu’s heart stopped in his chest for one long moment as Kise plummeted down, down, down, and it was only at the very last second before the waves reached up and took him that he snapped the glider’s wings open and soared, rising to float above the temple with the rest of them in perfect formation.

Kasamatsu waited for Kise to get close enough, then kicked him hard in the shins, catching himself back up with a causal flip; Kasamatsu’s supreme confidence was in the sky.

“Ow!” said Kise.

“Showoff,” said Kasamatsu, accurately.

“He beat your record, though,” said Moriyama, laughing, and they all caught the updraft and went higher and higher, until the noise of Air Temple Island was a distant memory, and Republic City lay before them in a dark sprawling moving mass, like an elephant-termite mound cut open, cars in the streets and streets cutting everywhere, the lights beginning to go on as evening fell.

“Welcome to Republic City,” said Kasamatsu, and showed Kise the best spot to do tricks over the factories with their gusts of hot air, pointed out the park and the markets- “Best fire flakes in the city, we’ll go sometime,”- and they all flew until the bells rang out for dinner, and they had to go back, racing each other through the clouds.

When they touched down in front of the dormitories to stash their gliders and splash their faces before going in, though, they got a nasty shock: Takeuchi was standing there with his arms crossed, quite clearly waiting for them.

“Er,” said Kasamatsu.

“Yukio, Yoshitaka, Koji. You’re late,” said Takeuchi, perfectly patient. “I see you had a nice flight.”

They shuffled their feet. Kasamatsu suddenly recalled he’d been supposed to help the monks settle in the new arrivals, not take off with one new arrival and spend the whole evening goofing off flying, and Kobori and Moriyama went white with the thought of their missed practice. They were dirty with soot, too, and soaked with sweat and water vapour both. Kise tried to tuck himself behind Kasamatsu.

“You do know that tonight is a special occasion, ” said Takeuchi. “The Avatar is to receive his mastery tattoos tomorrow, a great many diplomats and important personages will be present on the Island tonight. It is a very important ceremony for all air benders, to welcome another master into our ranks, and to confirm that the Avatar is ready to begin his training in the next element. Air Temple Island is under the scrutiny of the world.” They squirmed.

Kasamatsu was surprised, he hadn’t seen any other Air Bison arriving today, and no one had said-

“Avatar Kise, do not let me detain you,” said Takeuchi, remorseless. “I’m sure the boys will show you where to clean up.”

Kasamatsu opened his mouth, and then closed it.

Takeuchi paused. “Now,” he said. They ran for it.

They raced to the washing area- Kasamatsu grabbing Kise by the shirt and outright dragging him- splashed their faces in the stone basins and raced back to the main hall, pausing only for Kasamatsu to turn his head and glare at Kise while they waited under the eyes of the nuns to pass muster for entry into a room full of important people.

Kise smiled, with a faint trace of anxiety around his eyes. "I thought you knew," he said, apologetically. "Usually everyone knows."

That was the annoying part, knew Kasamatsu. He should have known. But he hadn’t thought to connect Kise, sparkling and sweet and a complete showoff, with the line of silent statues in the sanctuary, with the news that the Avatar had completed his Air Bending training and was coming to Republic City. He hadn’t even counted back from the last Avatar’s death and realised that the new one had to be younger than him.

"You have your mastery?" he said instead, letting the air whip off his irritation as well as dry his skin.

"A month ago," said Kise.

Kasamatsu rolled his eyes so hard he felt they might permanently roll back into their sockets and fall into the gaping hole that was his brain. Kise was ten. No wonder he'd been showing off, watching them fly, no wonder he'd showed them all up so easily. Kise’s head was shaven in preparation for his mastery tattoos, the youngest to wear them since Aang himself, almost three hundred years ago.

Kise had neither the air of ethereal awareness nor the grave impression of secret wisdom Kasamatsu had come to expect from pictures of the Avatar. He did, however, exude an air of self-possessed certainty which Kasamatsu only found annoying: Kise seemed to stand a bit taller now that they knew he was the Avatar, a little more stiffly. He thumped Kise in the shoulder. “You have your mastery but you can’t do a triple backwards barrel roll?” he said. “What did you even do for your test?”

Kise pouted and launched into a highly coloured description of his original move, waving his hands around trying to get them to picture it, and Moriyama and Kobori slowly unstuck and started responding to him again, while they waited for the important people- the non-air benders of Republic City, invited to attend this momentous occasion- to actually come in and sit down so they all could eat.

There was an empty place at the high table no doubt meant for the Avatar, but Kise eyed it and refused to go.

“I want to sit with you,” said Kise, trying to stare wide-eyed into Kasamatsu's face. 

“Tough,” responded Kasamatsu, standing up, and having all eyes fasten on him. He’d have to bring Kise there, with the death grip the brat had on his sleeve. He swallowed. “You’re the Avatar. Man up.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For KiKasa Week on Tumblr.

When Kasamatsu folded up his glider and dropped to the _Victory_ 's deck, he was instantly hit by nearly two meters of sobbing Avatar, Kise having grown in the interval since they last met. 

"Sempaiiii, sempai you caaaaaaame," Kise sobbed, as Kasamatsu staggered upon impact. 

Kasamatsu rolled his eyes, shifted Kise to one side, and fumbled for his courier pouch. Commander Akashi advanced, unhurried.

"Good-morning," he said politely. Kasamatsu bowed as much as he could in greeting. The newly promoted Commander and Kise’s firebending teacher was just his age, he knew, and in light sparring gear, looked it. An aide hurried forward to take the pouch.

"I will have a reply for Captain Nijimura in less than hour," said Commander Akashi. "Please make yourself comfortable on board until that time." His gaze cut sideways to Kise. "Ryouta, see to our guest."

Kise shot straight up and bowed to Commander Akashi. “Yes, sensei,” he said, perfectly level with the ground. 

"Dismissed," said the Commander almost idly, and he left, a train of aides gathering in his wake like obedient clouds. 

"He’s certainly done well for your manners," said Kasamatsu approvingly. 

Kise staggered upright and threw himself back into Kasamatsu’s arms. “Take me away from here,” he said. “I’ll do anything. _Anything_.” 

"Oof," said Kasamatsu. "Kise, get  _off_. Training is supposed to be hard. Aren’t you learning firebending?”

"He doesn’t let me bend at all!" Kise sniffed. "Every morning he throws me off this boat and makes me keep up without using waterbending. AT ALL!"

"Ship!" snapped a nearby crew member, glaring at Kise. Kise made a small soft noise of irritation and buried himself further in Kasamatsu’s warm woolen clothes, made for flying, his hands flexing in the air nomad-woven cloth. Kasamatsu wondered how long it would take to untangle him, if Kise managed to burrow in.

"Isn’t that just called swimming?" said Kasamatsu, determinedly unsympathetic. For all his complaining, Kise looked very well. He had grown, and put on long sleek muscle. His hair had been cut again since Kasamatsu had last seen him, and it was growing out dark with just the faintest suggestion of his usual bleached colour at the tips. He was dressed as the other cadets aboard the Victory, minus the embellishments to establish his division and rank. If it hadn’t been for the tattoos, Kasamatsu might not have recognized him. He felt a pang. It seemed very long since they had been children on Air Temple Island- if Kise, reincarnated over a thousand lifetimes, had ever been truly young.

"We’re nearly in  _the A_ _rctic_ ,” said Kise. He made a face which distorted all his perfect features and poise, and Kasamatsu laughed at him. 

"It’s good for you," said Kasamatsu. "You’re learning to firebend, right? Keep yourself warm inside."

"Oh hey," said Kise, perking up. "That’s a thought."

"It’s a good thing you were born like this," said Kasamatsu. "Well come on- I’ve got an hour to kill. Show me around, or do you want to catch some cloud?"

"Akashichi’ll take two hours," Kise informed him. "Since it’s for Captain Nijimura." He smiled angelically. "We’ll do both."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically a teaser for Nijimura's appearance, done for an Anon on tumblr.

 

The buzzing of the mess hall, full of jolted-awake cadets rushing to bolt their breakfasts, rose and fell like waves.

It was an emergency- no, it  _had been_  an emergency, and now it wasn’t anymore: now senior cadets were running about looking harassed and the academy staff were nowhere to be seen, civilians excepted. The etiquette and outreach program teacher was calmly and primly overseeing the two lower years of the United Republic Fleet’s officer cadet school at their meal as they speculated on what had happened to clear their schedules and have them all ready to move out (but not too far away, or for too long, they’d not been told to take or leave anything) so suddenly, so soon.

“It’ll be grunt work,” said a girl, her clear voice cutting through the noise. “They never give new recruits anything interesting.” She made a face: for those privileged enough to bypass the rank and file of the fleet by enrolling with the school, the insistence on rigid discipline and public service- emphasis on the service- had been a difficult adjustment.

“I heard someone say that they carried in Nijimura-san!” someone else said. “The healers are with him now!” 

This changed things. Nijimura Shuzou had been in Ba Sing Se- no, at the Eastern Temple, no, he’d broken open a spirit gate in the Swamp, or that one out over by the North Pole? HQ would have handled if it was the one in Republic City, they wouldn’t have had to call him in-

“Yeah,” said one boy, dark-skinned, his hair cropped close to his head. His mouth was very full. “But they’d do it anyway, right? He’s got the experience! You want him watching your back.”

This piece of news was accepted and incorporated. There had been flares set off last night- but no, all kinds of ships carried flares, even the air nomads on their bisons used distress flares, to signal everyone in sight. Was it really him? (Eyes like thunderclouds, like really you see them and think  _I’m fucked._ ) Where could they have been? Did you hear the explosion, which rocked the docked warships and disturbed the air? 

Did you see it, do you know him,  _were you there_?

Akashi Seijuurou, dark circles under his eyes and a smile, very small, very satisfied, on his face, asked the girl across from him to pass the eggs. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KiKuro, History
> 
> The KiKuro song of SnS is Kesha’s [Wherever You Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuWTLoMM3sI), make of that what you will.

“You read a lot,” said Kise, squinting across the room. “You visit the archives like, every week.”

“The archives of Kiyoshi Village are very extensive,” said Kuroko. “After the hundred years war, the scattered Kiyoshi Warriors returned home and documented their travels and their adventures. Councilman Sokka’s extensive library, amassed over many years, is also partially stored here.” He made a note in one of his plain blue-bound notebooks. It had arrived with him from the north pole and he had a whole stack of them, carefully wrapped in wax paper and leather. “And it’s what I’m here to do, after all.”

“Do you want to write a book, Kurokochi?” said Kise. 

“Something like that,” said Kuroko. “It is very fascinating. There’s a lot of information here only referenced in other texts that I’ve seen.”

Kise wasn’t interested in other texts, or the Northern Water Tribe, which he mostly remembered as being cold, crowded, and bad for his skin. He lay on his back and enjoyed Kuroko’s quiet presence, which seemed quite soothing. It was warm outside, but cool inside, and Kise hummed lightly to himself without thinking too hard about it. 

He was three bars into the song before he realised he had an accompaniment. 

Kuroko, still making notes, had started singing the words to the song just above his breath. Kise didn’t know the words to the song, but they matched each other- somewhat off-tune, but good enough- as the music wound on, until the door opened and interrupted them. 

It was Momoi, who had come to fetch them after her day as a Kiyoshi Warrior ended. Kise let the tune run out, and Kuroko sang the last verse and heaved a deep sigh. 

“That’s a nice song,” said Momoi, smiling at them. “Where do you know it from?"

“I’m not sure,” said Kise. Kurokochi was looking down at his papers, packing them up. “I guess I’ll remember.”

“It’s quite an old song,” said Kuroko, his voice a bit dry from all that reading. “I haven’t heard it since I was very young.”

“Let’s sing it again later,” Kise said. “You can teach me the whole thing.”

Kuroko smiled at him, one of his rare actual facial expressions. “Yes,” he said. “That would be nice.”


End file.
